Global Issues

Australia

• Destination country for women subjected to forced prostitution, and, to a lesser extent, women and men in forced labor and children in sex trafficking.

• Women from Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, China, and, to a lesser extent, India, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, and Africa, migrate to Australia voluntarily, some ending up in prostitution.

• Some immigrants coerced into prostitution in both legal and illegal brothels.

• Reports some brothels run by Asian organized crime groups that arrange for Asian women to travel to work in brothels. Victims sometimes held captive, subjected to physical and sexual violence and intimidation, manipulated through illegal drugs, and obliged to pay off unexpected or inflated debts to their traffickers.

Advocacy:

• Scarlet Alliance, Australian Sex Workers Association aims to achieve equality, social, legal, political, cultural and economic justice for sex industry workers, in order for sex workers to be self-determining agents, building their own alliances and choosing where and how they work.

• Victim Support Program assists victims of trafficking

• Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – Australia works locally and internationally to end all forms of sexual violence and exploitation of women, especially in prostitution, trafficking and pornography.

• National Advisory Committee on Missing Persons.

Sources: UN Women Violence against Women Prevalence Data: Surveys by Country 2011; U.S. Department of State 2010 Human Rights Report, U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2011; Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 353, Australian Institute of Criminology, March 2008